Vintage juke boxes from the 40's and 50's had a simple and effective user interface. Their song library was printed on numerous small song cards arranged on page frames, often with a page turning mechanism similar to those shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,253,234 and 6,249,999, and each song was assigned an access code such as “J7” or “512”. Music was played back from records, which often had songs on both sides of the disc, so an update of a record selection usually required a qualified serviceman to open up the housing of the juke box. With two sided records being the standard, music selections usually had to be updated in pairs. An update included changing both the record selection and song cards. Since updates required so much work, they were usually not done until several new songs were to be updated. This was usually done by disassembling the outside housing and sliding the song cards sideways out of the page frames. Because it was unusual to update all selections on a whole page at one time, many of the original song cards for popular song titles were not changed. Therefore, each page frame held several smaller strips, each displaying two song selections.
Larger systems added “wall box” remote controls, most often seen at the tables in 50's diners, which allowed customers to easily select music without leaving their seat. These larger systems were popular even though they were complex, expensive and difficult to maintain. Few examples remain operational today. Juke box systems are still popular, such as those shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,031,795 and 6,587,403, but modern juke boxes use CD's instead of records for the playback of music, which may increase the number of selections available in some systems. However, no modern production juke box product currently offers wall box remotes as an option.